


On With the Motley!

by AnonymousHeavyIndustries



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal, Blow Jobs, Clowns, Gangbang, Humiliation, Kink Discovery, Life-affirming, M/M, Mild Coprophagia, Prostitution, Scat, Soul-Searching, Spanking, Spitroasting, Strip Tease, Watersports, [HONKING INTENSIFIES], coulrophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-05 17:39:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15868524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousHeavyIndustries/pseuds/AnonymousHeavyIndustries
Summary: It's a strange day when salvation comes in a tin of greasepaint.With his finances dwindling and his life void of direction, Sousuke looks to unexpected places in order to make ends meet.A tale for the ages about friendship, finding your place in the world, and the healing power of gay clown sex.





	On With the Motley!

**Author's Note:**

> For a certain clown. Thanks for giving me such interesting material to work with.
> 
> Tunes [for clowns down on their luck.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VByYGqabtow)

Prostitute or party clown. That was what it'd come to. The impending punchline to his joke of a life.

Rewind four, five years, back when he was Little Sousuke, still spouting off, "I'm gonna be an Olympian!" with that disgusting self-assurance reality had yet to steamroll out of him. Things had looked alright. Great, even. Ranked among the top ten butterfly swimmers in the nation, hard worker, talented enough, had the full support of his friends and family. Every ingredient for a feel-good story was present and accounted for: the good ol boy from the middle of nowhere chases an impossible dream and soars into glorious championhood. He could see the book deals, the sponsorships, the biopics that won as many awards as he had. He'd have a boyfriend and a comfortable career coaching the swimmers who came after him while still remaining humble and taking the time to invest back into his community. A street would be named after him. There would be setbacks, sure, but they would only make his inevitable victory all the sweeter.

What Little Sousuke didn't get was that failure, in the permanent sense, was possible. He didn't get that career-ending injuries and crippling ennui were comorbid afflictions. He didn't understand that a shitbox in a safeish neighbourhood in the Tokyo metro cost as much per month as a mortgage payment on a house in the countryside, if not more, and that his attempt to 'find himself' in the city was about to find his ass in the concrete embrace of a rent-free gutter. He'd never considered the nauseating shame that accompanied the idea of moving back in with his parents and having to face them every blessèd day with the knowledge that he was a complete and utter loser.

In short, Little Sousuke was an idiot.

School he tried, sort of. Nobody who'd wanted him before his shoulder blew had room for a hick with solid, albeit unexceptional marks from an athletic school and an undecided major. Pro swimming had been Plans A through Z with little thought given to what he'd be doing when he wasn't in the pool and there were so many schools in the area that he could scarcely wrap his head around them. Aiming for something like Todai was idiotic, but that didn't make sorting through the other reputable, if less illustrious, schools any easier. To settle the issue, he made a list of every coed school in the area, excluding only the lowest of the low, used a random number generator to select a few, then applied to their most prestigious programs. Electrical engineering, business management, scholar of maritime history, those were all things respectable people did. Premed? Sure, why not. He wouldn't know if he liked it until he tried.

Exam season arrived. He was as prepared as could be expected given the wildly different natures of the programs he was pursuing, but confident that he could make something work. Everyone he cared for touched base to let him know they were rooting for him. Success was expected.

Exam One: puked on his test and was asked to leave.

Exams Two and Three: passed out for no discernible reason and was escorted from the premises.

Exam Four: couldn't bring himself to leave his apartment and spent the day playing pirated Touhou games on his laptop. Sent vague responses to anyone who asked how he'd done and cancelled plans to go back home during winter.

He wasn't sure where it'd come from. When he went to the clinic to see if somebody would prescribe him a fix, they said it was stress, which made no sense. He'd taken plenty of exams before and like any serious athlete, he thrived under pressure. Swooning like some Victorian broad with her corset done too tight wasn't him. It'd never been him. Nervousness? He'd conquered that in high school. Even before then, he'd never been able to seriously relate to those sweaty-palmed, weak-stomached cowards moaning about their frayed nerves. Things got tough, he sucked it up, pushed through, and realized it had never been as bad as it seemed.

This, he figured, was a kind of mental pain. A muscle atrophied from disuse, crying out under the sudden strain. His coaches had taught him plenty about that. And if, as they said, pain was weakness leaving the body, then inexplicable vomiting and loss of consciousness must be signs of burgeoning mental fortitude. Once he got over this, he'd have the sickest brain gains this side of the Atlantic.

Framed that way, it sounded stupid. He instead decided that it'd been a nasty bout of the flu with symptoms that flared up at inopportune times, accepted the unplanned gap year, and launched headfirst into the workforce.

His employment history quickly became a manycoloured tapestry of industries. There was the office job that fired him for catching a more conventional flu during his '100% attendance mandatory' training period. The gig as a machinist at a company that went under five months after he got hired. One corner store position he'd been sacked from after a register came up ¥1200 short and another because the owner's sixteen year old told Daddy that Mr Yamazaki made rude comments about her breasts when all he'd done was ignore her advances. Other less memorable ones that he'd held for a few weeks or months. He didn't care much about what he did so long as it kept the lights on.

Every day went the same: he worked and he studied. In his spare time, he preened his melted wings in hopes of getting them back in order. He worked, he studied. They said he'd need surgery. He worked. They said he might not be able to compete even if he got it. He studied. He missed the application date for the next bout of exams, locked himself in his apartment, watched an unhealthy amount of anime about cute girls doing cute things, then told everyone that he'd lost his phone charger when he mustered the fortitude to reintegrate into society two weeks later.

It was on a night when he couldn't do anything but analyze the water spots in the ceiling, hoping they would put him to sleep, that he decided he was pretty well fucked. Up til then, he'd been blanketed in the illusion of having a plan and people let him be. He no longer had that convenience. One major fuckup was one thing. Adulting was hard, missteps were a given. But two? Understanding faltered. Patience drew to a thread. There was no reason he shouldn't have gotten himself together by now. Not him, a top ten ranked butterfly swimmer. Not him, a guy who when adults told him he could be anything he wanted, they actually meant it. Talking to people he knew from before turned into a tap dance across hot asphalt. No matter how careful his footwork, he always ended up tar-stuck and scalded. Their lukewarm platitudes—keep your chin up, believe in yourself, life will find a way—curdled stomach and blood alike. The few times he did go home, he vomited his tongue raw.

At present, he was part-time back of house at a Chinese restaurant but it wasn't enough to cover the bills. His neverending search for a second job remained unfruitful. He'd been scraping by on the quietly dwindling monthly allowances his parents sent him and, taking the hint for what it was, figured he'd best sort himself out before they stopped showing up entirely.

And thus—prostitute or party clown. Back and forth he flicked between tabs. One was a craigslist ad from an Australian seeking a "companion" to "keep him company" during his holiday to Tokyo in return for compensation that would be negotiated via email, the other a job listing from Merryweather Party Services.

**Clown needed. STARTS IMMEDIATELY!!!! Advance on first payday!!!**

He didn't know why he'd clicked on it. Clowning stood counter to the entirety of his existence. Faking smiles and cheer, prancing around for the sole purpose of making an ass of himself, being the life of the party in general. That was better suited to Rin or Momo, not someone who wore his social muscles out after the first hour and spent the rest of the party admiring the corner and waiting for more congenial friends to want to go home. Besides, who used clowns anymore? Modern kids couldn't give half a shit about them, if they weren't outright terrified. He'd watched _It_ with Rin back in elementary school and that alone was three plus hours of reasons to scour out any goodwill he might've had.

He switched tabs and considered the odds of him getting arrested if he robbed the Aussie. Low, he bet, especially since it was a foreigner. Short the wallet a bill. Pocket that ring that looked like it didn't get much mileage. Johnny Roobender wouldn't even notice they were gone and if he did, cops wouldn't do anything but tell the guy tough luck and send him home.

His phone rang. Another debt collector, TEPCO this time. He hung up.

There was no way around it. His bank account was crying. Once again, this month's allowance couldn't cover the rent. The water got shut off two days back, the electricity was only a matter of time. He'd been cooking his ramen with leftover bath water.

He mailed a few old selfies to the Aussie alongside a brief message in the stilted English he'd picked up from hanging around Rin, then closed the window. Hong Meiling grinned up from the screen with a mouthwatering bag of meat buns. He patted her head with his fingertip. Being a criminal couldn't be that bad.

 

The arranged day found him hunched in the corner of the room, stomach sick and iPod drained from the hours of hard rock he'd blared to get hype for the heist. On his desktop, Meiling was frozen midstrike, smiling with the furious glee of a born warrior. He took a deep breath.

Yamazaki Sousuke vs Impending Homelessness: Round One.

He hopped up and shook his arms out, head swinging and swaying. He slapped himself in the face, relishing the sting, and boxed the air. This was nothing to him. He was a killer, the king of the roost. He could do this. He had to. Nothing would go wrong.

But fuck, there was so much that could.

Johnny wakes up while he's tossing the place, kicks his ass inside out. Or he calls the cops and they decide that, for once, this is a case worth pursuing. The guy had his real name, number, and email, for fuck's sake, he wasn't getting away from this. Cut to him in a jail cell with an over-friendly bunkmate exchanging protection for orificial integrity. The cops would watch. Join in. He'd have to turn to drugs to cope. From there, it was all downhill and straight into the abyss.

He ran to his laptop and restored his last session. He switched tabs and dialled the number, praying someone would answer. The line picked up and some tired old man grumbled a halfassed greeting.

"Are you still hiring?"

—

He couldn't juggle, do magic tricks, tell child-friendly jokes, make balloon animals, or anything else anyone would hire a clown to do, but he could paint faces and according to the owner, that was good enough.

"Don't show up too early, don't make the kids cry, don't hit on the moms, and you'll be golden. You'd think I wouldn't have to say that, but you've got a good face and these ladies see their husbands five minutes a day, if that. They're starving for male attention."

He'd spent the past hour reading clown makeup tutorials and was still certain he'd fucked it up somehow. Cold paint crusted his fringe and he'd nearly stabbed out his eyes trying to get coverage around them, but after a long struggle, he'd gotten down a clean, even base of white to layer his features on. The row of paint pots before him stood open, menacing. It was the second time he'd managed to get this far. He couldn't afford to start over a third; he only had twenty minutes before he had to get suited up and leave. He'd sketched out a couple ideas beforehand but he'd flubbed the more elaborate one and the other looked stupid now.

 _Makeup tells the world who you want to be. Be you!_ one site unhelpfully suggested. He wasn't being paid to be himself, he was being paid to be a clown and while he'd gotten a rough idea of the different subtypes, he didn't know what type of clown he was supposed to be. Auguste, character, blanc, it was all the same to him. The boss had only said that it couldn't be obscene, but he hadn't planned on painting FUCK across his forehead to begin with (though he was starting to want to).

He paced as much as he could through his tiny bathroom, hyperconscious of the clock counting down his departure. Eighteen minutes. The parents didn't know any better and neither did the kids. He could smear a bunch of red all over and call it a day. Seventeen. This was a temporary gig. Nothing worth getting stressed over. Sixteen. He returned to the sink. Even if no one else cared, he did.

Magenta diamonds split at the horizon of his eyelashes, ring around the mouth in blue, dark, exaggerated eyebrows that would be at home on a runway. He extended the corners of his lips slightly and terminated them with pips to enhance his smile, then cleaned up his linework with a wet q-tip. He dug a powder puff into a box of corn starch he'd found in the back of his cupboard and powdered so hard he looked like he'd dove facefirst into a mountain of cocaine. The boss had been kind enough to provide him with a brush that he swiped the excess powder off with, then layered on setting spray til he was certain there would be no smearing. He donned his rainbow afro and paused.

Even with the makeup it was him. There was no denying that. He could see the scar from when he'd bashed his head on the corner of a starting block as a kid and his features were at the same angles in the same places. If somebody he knew saw him, they might be caught off guard, but they'd see through it given a minute or two. Still, there was something different. Something him, yet not him.

No time to dwell on it. He screwed on lids and snapped shut open caps and grabbed his bag and headed out. He caught his reflection in a storefront window and nearly stopped again. The alarm on his phone chimed, reminding him he only had a few minutes to make it to the station, and he hurried on.

 

Birthday boy was turning nine, which was too old for a clown, but parental tone-deafness accounted for a good chunk of Merryweather's gigs and he wasn't about to talk himself out of a payday. The kids were more interested in playing baseball than sitting around watching hired entertainment, so Sousuke relegated himself to being a hunk of furniture, occasionally dipping past the snack table to grab pieces of watermelon when no one was looking. Nobody had taken him up on the face painting. The moms were in the kitchen discussing inane housewife things. Now and then they eyed him and giggled and he picked at his collar and they giggled more and he was starting to think this must be how flowers felt before they were ripped out of the ground.

One sauntered up to him, glass of wine in hand. "So, what's your name?"

"Bubbles."

"You don't look like a Bubbles."

"Trust me, I don't feel like one either."

The wives tittered. He couldn't help but be annoyed. Not at them, but the company. All Merryweather clowns were Bubbles, said the boss. Always have been, always will be. He let him do his own makeup, he should pick a name to match.

The woman tried goading more personal information out of him, but his noncommittal responses whittled down her enthusiasm. He offered to paint her face for the hell of it and sent her away with a pink and yellow butterfly mask that failed to inspire the other wives to submit to his brush. He shoveled a fistful of green bean crisps into his mouth and surveyed the room. From the far side came another corner-dweller who'd been gravitating towards him the past five minutes. He was a mousy thing, dressed plainly, with glasses too big for his head and shoelaces that wouldn't stay tied.

"What's up, kiddo?"

"Can you paint my face?"

"Sure thing. What do you want?"

"A clown." He shyly added, "I like clowns."

"Really? I didn't think kids like you existed." He opened his tray of paints and prepped his brush. "What's so good about em?"

The boy fiddled with his glasses, folding and unfolding them in his lap. "I get scared about what people think about me. Like I'll wear something weird and someone will make fun of me or I'll do something dumb and everyone will remember it forever. Clowns aren't like that. They can do whatever they want and not be scared. They like when people laugh at them cause it means they're happy. And that makes them happy too."

That was leagues more thoughtful than he'd expected out from someone who'd yet to grow a single armpit hair. He patted on clown white, chewing over the idea. "I never thought about it like that."

The kid nodded, as if that'd been expected. "You're not very clowny."

"I'm not?"

"The way you move is like a normal person. It's supposed to be more like..." Lacking the words to articulate himself properly, he flailed his arms. "Big. Excited."

He'd been thinking epileptic, but close enough. "I don't think your friend's mom would appreciate it if I was running around breaking stuff."

"You don't have to break stuff. You just have to have fun." The boy closed his eyes as Sousuke painted his tears. "You don't seem like you're having fun."

"I'm just doing my job." He coloured in the muzzle, dotted the nose, and set the paint.

The boy got up and breathed deep. A warm smile spread over his face. He hugged Sousuke and gamboled outside, arms swinging. Sousuke stood to get a better view as the kid took up the baseballs that'd been flying across the yard and started to juggle. The balls flew higher and higher out of sight. The boy craned his head, searching the sky—only for them plummet around his feet. He scooped them up with an offended huff and sent them aloft again. One he bounced off his head into his hand, another off his heel like a hackeysack, and the third he caught in the crease between his topfoot and shin, teetering and wobbling on one leg til it failed and he dropped into the grass. The boys cheered and laughed, showering him with grass clippings and goading him back up to show them more.

"That was great, what you did for Toshiro." A housewife whose breath smelled of bottom shelf rosé had inserted herself into his armpit. "He's always been shy and his mum's busy and his dad's dead, so yeah. It was great of you."

"Making people happy is what I do."

"I really like guys who are good with kids." She lifted one bleary eyelid and brought her glass to her mouth. A thin stream dribbled out the corner of her lip. "My son's going to the arcade with the birthday boy after this. I could use some entertainment."

 

The last time he'd been in contact with a vagina was when he'd been born, but if that was any indication of what they were like, he wasn't about to switch teams anytime soon. Barbara from Cockaleechie, as she'd introduced herself, had sucked down a menthol within seconds of him rolling off and was working on a second, tapping the cherry into the overflowing ashtray on the nightstand.

"My husband's running around with some bimbo at his office. Doesn't even care that I know." The cigarette shook between her teeth as she chewed the filter. "Says it doesn't count because there's no feelings involved."

"Sounds tough."

She patted his hand. "You don't have to say anything. You're just here to look pretty. I'll give you five extra if you stay another hour."

"Six."

She was already counting the bills. "Deal."

To pass the time, he transformed her into a psychedelic tiger. Swaths of lavender and electric blue striped over with black covered her arms, white whisker spots stippled her hot pink muzzle. The more he painted, the more animated she got, digging her nails into his forearm, growling, laughing. Pizza arrived and they ate in bed like hogs, washing it down with wine served in coffee mugs. The hour was about up when the front door opened. He glanced at the balcony. Barbara waved her hand lazily at him and fetched his wig off the floor. She instructed him to put it on, then buried her face in his crotch, working his limp prick with the vocal enthusiasm of a porn star. The bedroom door opened.

A plain, balding businessman in the midst of unbuttoning his shirt assessed the situation, weighed his options, then turned around and left.

Barbara flung her wine mug at the door, cackling with laughter, then waited out the last five minutes curled up in his lap. He gave her a business card, she gave him his money, her husband's gold watch, and a container of curry and sent him on his way.

The boss fired him for coming back late, then rehired him the next day after Barbara demanded he be at her son's birthday in August.

—

Pawning the watch saved him from eviction and brought him a bit closer towards resuming civilized life, but the market for clowning remained erratic and his hours at the restaurant had been whittled down to the single digits to make room for the owner's family. Fortune smiled, granting him a part-time job as a janitor in a posh office complex and the leeway to sleep easier than he had in months.

As the sole clown for Merryweather, he was afforded a total monopoly on the events they handled as well as the complaints that ensued when he wasn't up to snuff. Face painting alone was not, in fact, good enough. People wanted card tricks and prat falls and balloon animals and the other fundamental trappings of clownhood. But for every gripe he earned, there was always another glowing review and a request for a future event. The boss didn't bother questioning why so many women suddenly wanted a clown to entertain at their birthdays, weddings, funerals, etc., and Sousuke did his best to keep things that way.

Most of his off-book clients didn't want to get dicked, instead preferring to vent and cry about the difficulties of motherhood or work and how they didn't think their lives would turn out like this and he held them and wiped their tears and cracked some jokes to lighten the mood and apparently they considered that ¥6000 (per hour, no refunds or discounts for partial hours) damn well spent. He was thinking of raising his prices.

For all the threats, he'd yet to be permanently fired and even though he sucked at the thing he was supposed to be doing, it gave him concrete goals to focus on. Hauling home a box of props that hadn't seen sunlight in aeons and spending an afternoon teaching himself a new trick was better than sitting around browsing his friends' social media accounts, watching them fly to competitions, explore other countries, and generally be happy and successful in a way he couldn't begrudge them despite it aggravating that infernal chewing in his chest.

Juggling was first and simplest. Start with handkerchiefs to learn the hand movements, then work up to balls, pins, and irregular objects. Refine each step as he went. Add personal touches. In this way, he worked through the prop box, acquainting himself with each piece of equipment, assessing which tricks he liked and which he could disregard. He sketched new whiteface designs. Drew costumes. Came up with clown personas he knew he'd never get to try at Merryweather, but got a kick out of imagining anyway.

Performing got easier. When he fucked up in costume, his mistakes went away with the paint. He remained in a good mood most days, which scared him, as years of functioning at mild happiness, "can't complain", or varying levels of shit trained him to suspect persistent elevated mood as a warning of an impending divine smackdown. Figuring there was nothing he could do but wait for the hammer to drop, he took it for what it was and coasted.

—

The instant he popped on screen, Rin demanded, "What's wrong with your face?"

"My face?" Sousuke pointed at himself, pulling a grotesque, lip-curled, eye-crossed expression. "I don't know what you're talking about, I'm just as handsome as ever."

Rin laughed, slumping against the keyboard. "Seriously, what'd you do?"

Sousuke rubbed at the bruise blackening his right eye. He'd been icing whenever he could, but the swelling hadn't gone down much. "Cartwheeled into a ballet bar."

The last time he'd talked to Rin had been months ago, back before he'd missed out on his second bout of exams. He was in spectacular condition and had shacked up with Haru following his return to Tokyo—for convenience's sake, he'd said.

"Man, it's been god knows how long and I can't even get a, 'Hey, Sousuke, how you doing?' just 'what's wrong with your faaaaaaaaaaace?' I thought you had better manners than that."

Rin fluttered with matronly adore, laying fat wet auntie smooches on his webcam. "Oh, Sousuke, my sweet precious sunshine boy, I missed you so much, why don't you fucking call me? And since when do you do cartwheels?"

"Since I started doing acrobatics. Figured I should branch out."

He managed to get into the good graces of a hotshot who'd just opened a gym a few blocks from his apartment who waived the membership fee in exchange for one, as he termed it, "weird sex thing" per month, which turned out to be putting on a pair of high heels and treating him like a runway. The random texts gushing over shoes he'd "look great in" were bizarre, but the gym was nice and stepping on a weirdo for half an hour was the least questionable thing he'd done lately.

"That's awesome. Is your—does it—that's great."

"Some days are rougher than others. I set my pace based on how it's feeling and stay away from the arm-intensive stuff when it hurts. It's been going good."

"Do a backflip."

"I'm not going to do a backflip."

"Do a backflip!" Rin pounded his fist against the mattress, sending the camera wobbling. "Do it!"

Sousuke sighed and stretched out his legs. He stepped away from the camera, ensuring he was still in frame, and wriggled his toes, felt out his center of gravity. Rin huddled up close to the screen. Sousuke dug deep and flipped. No sooner than he hit the landing, he rocked back on his heels, took a broad step forward, and snapped into a front aerial.

Rin was a whistling, hollering mess. He ordered him to warm up and ran out of the room, shouting Haru's name as if they weren't only a dozen feet apart. Haru trudged into the room with towels circling both waist and neck to mitigate his incessant dripping and parked his soggy ass on the bed next to Rin.

He didn't have a proper routine put together, but he tossed out a couple things he'd been working on the past few sessions, showcasing balance, flexibility, grace. Rin watched with a giant idiot grin and Haru's mouth quirked up at the corner. Their enthusiasm fueled him, granting liveliness to his performance, flourishes in his poses, flicks of the wrist, a switch in the hips. Fumbles became part of the show instead of something to be shakily recovered from with a nervous laugh and cringe. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been proud to show off to someone. The last time he'd had anything worth showing off.

He capped his performance with another front aerial chained into a back handspring and sat in front of his laptop, sweating.

"Damn, son. Keep that up and you'll be a one-man circus before you know it."

"It was good," Haru said, then retreated to his bath, giving Rin ample time to ogle his backside.

"Nice view?"

"Dude." Rin lowered his voice, leaning in so close his breath fogged the lens. "Azuma finally got him to start lifting and his ass got _huge._ Every pound he puts on? Straight to the ass. It's amazing."

"Sounds fun."

"Things are kinda complicated, but I'll keep you updated when I get the chance. Don't be a stranger, alright? I missed hearing from you."

"Alright."

"I'm serious, I honestly thought you were dead for a while. I called your parents and everything."

"I'll keep in touch. I promise."

He picked up a pack of postcards and a roll of stamps and made good on his word.

—

Even from outside, he could hear the party already. Grumbling neighbours departed their roosts for a long walk around the block, eyeing him in exasperated disgust. _Not another nuisance,_ they thought, adding another couple laps to their trek. He'd be pissed too, if somebody dressed like him turned up at his home this time of night. He fluffed his afro and hoisted his party bag up the stairs, goose-stepping over the tips of his elongated shoes. Tonight's gig would be a tough one. These people weren't their usual clientele. Thinking it was a prank, the boss hesitated to give him the details of the job until the charge cleared. He couldn't say it wasn't a little unsettling. If things went south, he wasn't going to be able to whore his way out. Yet the competitive part of him lurked below the surface, excited at the challenge.

He verified the apartment number with the scrap of paper in his pocket and rapped a shave and a haircut on the door. The host answered, exhaling a beery hello, and stepped aside. A dozen men were crowded elbow-to-elbow in the living room with a bin bag full of beer cans at their feet and a black and white samurai flick on TV. They were bloviating from both ends, arguing over the movie, cocking their legs to let extra juicy barkers rip, belching so hard you could hear the tiny squelch of vomit plastering their hard palates. Muddled in the rancid air was a futile undercoat of vanilla courtesy of a candle in the kitchen.

Before he could so much as get out a word, a man in a paper crown looked up from his crumby plate and threw down his fork in indignation.

"A clown? Really? You said you were going to bring a stripper, this is bullshit!"

"Hey, hey, let's not hurt Fucko's feelings. I never said anything about strippers, I said I was gonna bring entertainment and you assumed the rest."

"I don't want a clown! I only get one bachelor party—"

"If you're lucky."

"I only get one, why can't I—"

"Shut up you baby, we already paid for him."

While they bickered, Sousuke brought out his balloon pump and got to work. He twisted his first balloon into a sword and lobbed it at the party boy, who promptly whacked the host in the face with it. The second sword he threw to the host and a duel broke out on the spot, fencing and lunging across the apartment, tripping on cans and each other. The men leapt up and mobbed him, begging for swords and dogs and dick-shaped hats.

Once everybody had their balloon creations, the bachelor pointed the rotund green blade of his sword at him. "This is fine and all, but how about you cut the shit and give us a real show?"

This he'd expected. "So what'll it be? Card tricks? Magic? Something else?"

"You're here to make me happy, right?"

"You got it."

"Well, I was expecting a stripper." His eyes raked over Sousuke, smiling. "Strip."

The group hooted with laughter. It wasn't what he'd expected, but it wasn't anything worse than he'd done before either. He figured he could put on a good show.

He gawked gormlessly at the lot, fingers pressed to his collarbones, eyebrows screwed up in confusion. _Who, me?_ Raucous cheers, wolf whistles. Yeah, him. He shrugged and shook his head as if to say there was no accounting for taste and reached for the back of his jumpsuit. The zipper ran from between the voluminous ruffles of his collar down to his sacrum and on any other day, it was the worst part of his costume. Tonight, he could work with it.

He pulled the zip a fraction then paused, wriggling and jerking from side to side like one of those inflatable tube men. Swearing in nonsense words, he managed another bit and stopped again, reading his audience. They goaded him on. He huffed and tugged and hopped around, thumping his shoes against the ground as he wrassled with the zip. One of the partygoers ran up behind him and yanked it down. He demurred, hiking his collar up over his mouth, making doe eyes at the crowd. Furious booing. He clapped his hands over his ears and the suit dropped, letting a flash of collarbone peek through. The mood of the room instantly reversed. Gradually he let one shoulder slide free, then the other, hips swaying in cartoonish, Jessica Rabbit swaths. He snapped his arms down, letting the suit fall to his ankles in a motley cascade. As he stepped out of it, someone leaned over and asked the host if he was sure he didn't call an actual stripper.

Cash appeared in two dozen sweating fists while he sat on the floor, legs stretched high as he pulled off his shoes. He tucked a foot in to get a whiff and feigned a swoon, fanning away the imaginary stench, then peeled his polka-dotted knee-highs off. He stretched one knee-high between his fists and rolled to his feet, waggling his backside against the sock as he approached the crowd. Bills were shoved into his waistband as he walked the circle, roping in men and pulling them close like lifelong friends. He tied the sock in a bow around one man's throat, trailing a coy fingertip down his t-shirt. With the biggest, shiteating grin he could muster, he grabbed the man's cock and squeezed it with a cheery, "Honk, honk."

A chair was imported from the kitchen and the bachelor sat heavy in it, slurping at his beer, arms draped all casual. Unimpressed. The host darted off to a side room and came back with a trombone and played a gliss-heavy interpretation of _Entrance of the Gladiators_ as Sousuke settled into the bachelor's lap. Having neither given nor received a lapdance in his life, he continued going with the flow, teasing and crooning, fingers scuffing through the bachelor's buzzcut, body moving slow and sinuous and hot as lava down a mountainside. He cradled the man's face in his hands, touching glossy cherry-red nose to human pink, gazed deep into his eyes and saw nothing but profound, cruel boredom.

Disgruntled, disgusted, annoyed, that he could handle. Boredom, more than anything, made it personal. An apathetic audience was the death of a performer. He leaned back, tapping the tip of the bachelor's nose, and quietly strategized. This son of a bitch was going to get entertained whether he wanted to or not.

Tired of the amateur showing, the bachelor thrust his sword into Sousuke's face. "Suck it."

Sousuke closed his mouth over the tip, kissing and tonguing it, slapping it against his cheek like a real cock. Nothing about the texture was close, but the shape was reminiscent enough and the bitter rubber taste reminded him of bargain bin condoms. It was nice having a bit of meat in his mouth, fake it may be. It'd been a while since he got laid on his own time, his last encounter involving a guy from the bath house down the way. He had a sleek prick with a bullet head that went down smooth. No strings, no expectations, and most important, no invasive getting to know you stage. He twisted his fists on the balloon, remembering. Ass-eating, oral, and a reaming as thorough as a man could ever want. Came buckets, the both of them. That was a good night, the kind you bragged about for years after. He shifted, trying to put his mind back on more important matters and hide his growing hardon. It didn't go unnoticed.

"He's got a boner," the bachelor said, laughing for the first time that night. "This gay-ass bitch got a fucking boner from blowing a balloon."

Mocking laughter rang bright and heavy, insinuating under his skin and echoing through his head. More of the balloon forced its way into his mouth, pressing down his tongue, scraping across his teeth, the bachelor commanding him to suck it, deep throat it, make it cum. Sousuke gagged as the tip slid into his throat, tongue involuntarily pressing up— _**POP!** _ Both men jolted in opposing directions. The bachelor laughed harder, biting his inner lip to suffocate the outburst into stone silence.

Sousuke picked the shredded rubber out of his teeth, drooling profusely. He spat on the floor to try and get the taste out of his mouth. Licking his incisors, he looked around the circle. No boredom here. Only hungry stares. Careful to sustain eye contact as long as possible, he checked the door. It was locked.

Swords clashed on the TV. Dying screams penetrated the quiet. Twelve drunk, rowdy straight men on one gay clown. Not good odds.

Hands descended on him, grabbing, slapping, yanking. A fist like a brick knocked his wig askew and he barely had time to right it before another man ripped off his nose. He clapped a hand over it, smarting from the glue and glad he'd painted his real nose in case something like this happened. The bachelor tore at his briefs, giving him a wedgie that burned some fierce.

"You a slut, Fucko?" He yanked the underwear deeper into his asscrack. "You look like one. Little gay slut."

Another man sidled up to them with his pants unzipped. His cock hung out over his waistband. It was fat as a coke bottle and had wiry hair down the whole shaft. He grabbed Sousuke by the head and smashed his face against his crotch. The scent of old piss and sweat clung to his innards and ate into em like acid.

"Smells good, right?"

A third reveller tugged him over to his own stinking groin. "C'mon, Fucko, we're friends. Friends help each other out."

Everybody's dicks were out now. Not since his days in high school locker rooms had he seen so many in one place. Long, fat, hairy, skinny, dark, pale as the moon, heads purple and red and pink and gleaming with pre, bushes sprouting in lush jungles of bruns and blacks. Cockstink thick enough to choke on. He shivered in excitement. It wasn't as if they were unattractive. The majority looked as if they were athletes or hit the gym with frequency. Sousuke looked around, mouth watering. They wanted entertainment. He was happy to give it to them.

"Bachelor first."

They agreed that was fair enough. Bills cascaded onto the floor as he tossed aside his briefs. Lube was magicked up out of nowhere and Sousuke stuck a few probing fingers up his ass. There was a hard obstruction sitting a couple knuckles in. He withdrew his fingers and wiped them on the back of the chair.

"Bathroom?"

The bachelor held him fast. "Do it on the floor. This place is a one-night rental, I don't give a fuck."

Pissing in front of others was one thing. Growing up as a man, you got used to it. You went in, did your business, and paid no mind to the three other guys doing the same. If you were inclined to look—which he was willing to admit that, on occasion, he was—most of them didn't mind. Would show off, even. Shitting was intimate. A bathroom stall was as good as a confessional. You entered, rendez-voused with the porcelain, and spilled your guts, letting your darkest, filthiest secrets slide into unforgiving daylight while you prayed for absolution.

There was the question of how he should go about it. Squat like how he had to when he was at Nan's place? Go on hands and knees, staring at his audience in the same placid way a dog did? Both sounded fine. He tried getting up. The bachelor wouldn't let go. The circle tightened around them. Figuring it was easier to get it over with than argue, he braced himself against the bachelor and arched his back out to avoid making an unwanted mess.

The turd teased against his sphincter, pushing it outward. He imagined that tight pucker blossoming rosepink, ushering filth into the world, and clenched up, buttocks flexing. He buried his face into the bachelor's shoulder, smearing corn starch on his polo. This was too much. No matter how he tried to rationalize it, he couldn't do it.

His stomach gurgled with a sickening, churning sound like boiling mud. Gas strained against his taut skin, adding a pouch of painful softness around his middle. It'd been building up all day and though he'd emptied himself out on the walk from the train station, enough time had passed for his stocks to refill. One long, murderous whistler slid free and set his intestines in motion. Sludge chugged down the chute, building up pressure against his asshole. He sucked in his gut, held his breath, squirmed, but it was useless.

The shit crowned against his will, crackling as it slid out, the cobblestone texture playing hell with his anal nerves. It was an odious thing, near black from the stomach medicine he'd taken earlier and armed with a stench that sent several onlookers retching. It rolled on long and unbroken and shame was overwhelmed by sheer relief. His anus closed over the end in a farewell kiss, letting it drop to the floor in a heap. A dry, noxious whiff of gas, asshole puckering, ruminating, expanding, then a shorter, softer shit followed, just as black and fetid as the first.

"Gotta piss too?" asked the bachelor.

"Yeah," Sousuke muttered into his shirt.

Keeping his gaze firmly locked on the bachelor's polo, he turned around, scooching upward, pressing the soles of his feet against the bachelor's thighs, aimed for the shit, and forced out a spattering geyser. The stream tapered off, dribbling onto the bachelor's leg. He didn't mind. Sousuke pushed himself up, spreading his ass, fingers pulling at his shithole, exposing sweet intestinal pink. Look, he mimed, even after that display, he was still good for a fucking. All eyes were on him, awaiting his next trick. His stomach fluttered at the attention.

"Let's see how many fingers we can make disappear."

One slid in no problem. With his sphincter freshly flexed from shitting, two was just as simple. Three was more of a chore, but a pleasant one. Three was the feeling of a nice, respectable cock. He slouched into the bachelor and leisurely stroked himself off, drinking in this long-forgotten pleasure. Pre stuck to his fingers, stretched in transparent webs between them, and the urge to forget all this and finish himself smothered him. He forced his stroking hand to rest on his leg and returned to his task.

Four fingers was more than he'd ever taken, with another man or by himself. He pressed his pinky to the rim of his stretched hole and pushed. The world sharpened to white. His free hand twisted in the bachelor's slacks as he arched, foot thumping against the floor. _**Squelch.** _ His audience laughed and groaned in equal measures. He looked down. Straight in the shit. It squished between his toes like the mud he'd made pies out of as a kid. His stomach lurched, but he spread his toes and wiggled them and decided he didn't mind so much. Nothing but a bunch of warm wet mud in the summer sun.

He kneaded the shit between his feet, trying to shape it the way he'd shaped those pies, and offered a few lopsided patties up for sale. Five yen a piece, a price that couldn't be beat! No takers. He smote his creations beneath his feet once more, caking his soles slick black.

The bachelor pushed him off his lap. "Alright, alright, enough fucking around. Hands on the chair."

Sousuke positioned himself, head down, ass out. The bachelor picked up one of Sousuke's discarded shoes and paced around him. Anticipation prickled across his nape. The shoe collided against his ass with a _**SMACK** _ that shook to his marrow. Loud, but didn't hurt so bad. He struck again, harder.

"Nasty-ass clown. This what you do for a living?"

Another slap. The sting was setting in now. He struck him a half dozen more times, working up that burn, reddening his cheeks. Sousuke grunted, persevering as the hard rubber sole left oblong imprints on his ass. Fire bloomed across his cheeks, sending him rocking from foot to foot to alleviate the stress. The competitor in him thrummed to life, daring them to hit harder, get hopping mad and go all out. They couldn't make him scream or beg or cry. Whatever heinous acts they dreamed up were nothing. Clowns were impervious to embarrassment, thrived in humiliation.

The bachelor tossed the shoe aside, dropped his trousers, and sunk himself to the hilt. Sousuke's innards protested. A watery shit lurking deeper than he could reach dislodged itself and came shuddering down his gut. He tried warning him but a cramp seized his stomach and all he could manage was a groan. Oblivious, the bachelor fucked on, churning the oncoming tide into swampy froth til the full force of the blockage surged into the lower intestine. Warm putrid squirts sprayed out around his cock, soaking his pubes, dripping onto his balls, and only then did he pull out, fecal juices sluicing off his prick. Sousuke let out a soggy, burbling fart. Corn-studded shit meteors hurtled through the air. Diarrhea cascaded onto the mat, splattering against their feet. Wave after wave followed, mud giving way to water then nothing.

Unconcerned by the mess, the bachelor plunged back into thick of it and resumed plugging away. Shit and lube sucked and squelched in his hole with a filthy, visceral wetness, like a plunger stabbing into a toilet on the verge of overflow. His lips parted in a quiet smile.

The man with the coke-bottle cock mustered the nerve to approach. He grabbed him by the jaw and squeezed, pushing his prick up against Sousuke's lips, bathing him in musky cocksweat. Sousuke let his mouth drop into an elongated O. The man hesitated. Asking himself useless questions, no doubt. Sousuke lapped at his nuts, slurping up the warm, wrinkled sack to tighten his lips at the base of his cock with an obscene smirk.

"You're _into_ this, man. You love this shit. You love dick."

Sousuke winked, tonguing his balls. "I'm a straight D student."

The man slid his full length into Sousuke's mouth, making the muscles and tendons that made up his pretty, kissable mouth and stern jaw scream in protest. Slobber rolled over his lips, stringing to his chin as he supressed the urge to gag. Breathing was near impossible, never mind sucking. He could only relax and take it. The man cupped him round the ears and fucked him the frenetic, haphazard way a teenager did, more focused on getting it done than getting it good. In, out, in, out, in out in-out-in-out-inoutin. Already he could feel his balls hitching. The man pulled back, letting his cockhead catch on the backs of his incisors and grabbed his crank, brutalizing himself to completion. Bitter, mouthwatering spunk striped across his molars. Sousuke swallowed as if this was his first drink after a harsh trip through the Sahara, tongue scraping the underside of his cock to catch any stray droplets as the man cursed and writhed, fisting a hand in his wig. Once he was spent, he pulled out, jittery electric like a just-bred stallion.

Two men, both respectably sized but nowhere near as thick as the first, rose to his challenge. He snatched one by the belt and reeled him in, swallowing his cock whole. The other he grabbed by the prick and began stroking him off.

Things were picking up on the back end. The bachelor's thrusts got faster, shallower, keeping their bodies locked together, his sweaty, hefty balls thumping against him. He let out a guttural grunt and blew his load, mixing milk into the filthy soup lingering in his bowels. No sooner than he pulled out was another man on him, tired of waiting. He had a funny way of pulling almost completely out, then powering forward, yanking Sousuke back into his cock, slamfucking so hard he couldn't even focus on the dick in his mouth anymore. The third ground hard in him, making his knees go wobbly and weak. His nuts hitched up, boiling with the urge to cum, pisshole flaring, cockhead fat and taut and ready to fire. Cum lashed across his face, burst in his mouth, filled him to his core. His cock jolted hard, firing his sanity in a hot white bolt and he jerked between the cocks skewering him, tasting the seed spraying into his mouth, swallowing, shooting harder splattering the chair with his cum, shooting everything inside him out, pumping shot after shot contractions ripping through his cock fast and hard, and the world spun, immersed in men and the filthy stink of their hot, muscular bodies reduced to nothing but a few holes and a hard slab of human need gone nuclear, and dying, dying in the fallout.

A dizzying carousel of cocks of all shapes and sizes whirled before him. Streaks of grease and clown white littered every cock he sucked. He drunkenly grabbed the man nearest him and laid a sloppy blue smooch on his hip. His low back ached, burned with exertion. His overstimulated asshole was on the verge of going numb. Each thrust sent electricity prickling in the backs of his eyes, giddyhigh, hair standing on end and his voice hoarse, fucked into nothing. He kept on sucking, swallowing on both ends and it came back up in fits and starts, airy wisps whistling out alongside whoever's dick was fucking him, acrid burps that rattled in his throat, bringing the taste of hamburger and mustard with them. Somebody bent over and belched in his face. It barely registered.

As another load of jizz sprayed into his ass, the ridiculousness of the situation struck him. Here he was, getting gangbanged by a bunch of ostensibly straight guys and he'd never been more calm in his life. He opened his painted mouth and laughed.

One of the guys patted him on the head. "You're a good sport, Fucko."

The last of them pulled out and Sousuke sank against the chair in a sleepy, brainless stupor. Imprints from the chair back burned in his palms. He sat, sloppy fuckhole dripping cum onto the leatherette seat.

"How much longer we got him?"

"About ten minutes."

The host went to the snack table and grabbed a plate of boiled eggs. He pressed one against Sousuke's fucked-out, wrecked asshole and his fatigued anal muscles obediently sucked it in. He inserted another, then a third. They slid around, their softness moving inside him in ways a cock or toy couldn't.

"Shit it out."

He let his loosened sphincter relax. His anus flared, puckered, flared as he tried to coax them out. A trickle of piss dribbled onto the chair. He shifted into a dogsquat. The first egg crowned and ejected onto the seat, accompanied by a sputtering cumfart. The second lodged itself sideways from his straining. He slid a finger beside it and dug it out. It bounced onto the floor. The third followed without complaint.

Hairy hands picked them up and held them in front of his mouth. Sousuke opened wide, letting one sour, shit-slicked egg slide into his cheeks, then the other. He chewed, relishing the bitter, sulphurous taste. He swallowed, stuck his tongue out for remaining egg. That too he ate.

The man who'd fed him took a step back, prick in hand, and unleashed a torrent of piss onto his face. Another upturned his beer onto his afro. He stuck out his tongue, letting the fluids funnel down his nose to patter on his tastebuds. The brew was hoppy, with strong notes of pine and lemon that blended smoothly into the salted-earth piss. Boozed up as they were, the men shrugged and unleashed their collective aching bladders on him, showering his skin in gold, soaking the curls of his wig.

The mania of the room abruptly subsided the way waves retracted from the shore and the men exchanged impenetrable glances, then shuffled off for a fresh beer or to reclaim their spots around the TV. Sousuke sat there and collected himself. The credits were rolling on the movie. The party resumed as if he'd never interrupted.

"Bathroom," he rasped out.

The host jabbed his thumb thataway. Sousuke staggered there, ignoring the numbness in his low back, the cum smearing in his asscrack. He clicked the light on. Fresh hell stared back from the mirror. Smeared paint, wig cap starting to show, everything reeking of piss and liquor. He washed off the worst of the filth in the sink, scrubbing the shit from under his nails and between his toes. He didn't remove his greasepaint, though streaks of the man underneath had already begun showing through.

There was a wad of cash and his costume waiting for him when he got out. His tips had been collected and assembled in a separate stack. Paper towels laid damp on the pile of filth surrounding the chair and a new movie was playing. One of those feel-good flicks based on a true story. Two barefoot boys ran along the beach, telling wild tales about the future. One ran out into the water, a black silhouette against the golden sun, radiant. The other stayed at shore and built a kingdom out of sand. With a dried out starfish, he crowned himself king and was pleased.

"Thanks Fucko," called the bachelor as he stepped out. "We had fun."

He called a cab, void of the energy it would take for him to ride the trains in this state, and tried not to mind the way the cabbie's hairy lip curled at him when he seated himself. He gave him the address home and sunk into the scabbed leather seats, watching the neighbourhoods of Tokyo roll by.

—

He'd tried washing the clown suit. He had. But certain stains wouldn't come clean. And thus ended his employment with Merryweather. For once, getting fired didn't seem like the end of the world.

"What happened?" Rin stuffed another grape into his mouth, swatting Haru's hand as it reached into the bowl from off camera.

"My uniform got trashed on the job so they gave me the axe."

"That's bogus. They should at least give you the opportunity to pay for a replacement. Do you have a plan? We're not swimming in it, but we can send you some money while you're getting back on your feet."

"I'm alright." It felt good to say that and mean it. "I should be able to find a new job soon."

"Let's get together while you're still a free man. It's been ages since I've seen you. It's weird, us living the same city but never—Jesus, Haru, put some pants on while I'm on the phone. He can see you."

Haru slithered into view behind Rin, stretched out on the bed in an oversized t-shirt. He flexed his feet, showing off the gaping-mouthed cartoon fish printed on his socks.

"Frickin exhibitionist." Rin slapped him on the calf and moved the laptop so Haru was safely out of frame once more. "You've been working your ass off. I know you'll figure something out."

Sousuke leaned back, running his hand over the blue-green wig in his lap. There'd be shoes coming in the mail once he got the money together and after spending the better part of yesterday browsing fabric stores, he had a sketchbook full of costumes he was dying to try. There was nothing to figure. It was already done.

**Author's Note:**

> Sousuke is in a stereotypical circus clown getup in this story, but as he moves into his next clowning position, he diversifies his wardrobe and wig collection. His particular subset of clowning is what's referred to as comedy whiteface, which is what most people think of when they think of clowns.
> 
> Criticism is not only welcome, but encouraged, and helps me create better content in the future. Thanks for reading.  
> 26 September 2018  
> \- 匿名重工業


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